I take your Bibles and turn with
me to Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2. Our text will
be found in verse 16 through verse 18. Scripture says, For verily, truly,
he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him
the seed of Abraham. Wherefore, in all things it behooved
him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a
merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God,
to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered,
being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted. I've entitled this message, The
Suffering, Sufficient, and Succoring Savior. Suffering. Sufficient. Succoring Savior. First of all,
the Suffering Savior. The gospel of God's salvation
through grace, by grace, through faith in Christ. I want you to
understand that the gospel is centered. It is anchored. It is embedded in this, in the
suffering and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That
is the center of this message. It is the substance of this message. It is the hope of our salvation. The suffering of Jesus Christ. In this chapter, the apostle,
he quotes that scripture. He says, What is man that thou
art mindful of him, the son of man that thou visitest? Then
he describes what man is. Man is a little lower than the
angels. You crown him with honor and glory. You set all things
under His feet, yet what? Now it appears that not all things
are under Him. But we know this, when we read
that text, we see Jesus. We see Jesus who was made a little
lower than the angels. Verse 9, for what? The suffering
of death. He was made a man for this purpose,
the suffering of death. crowned with glory and honor,
that by the grace of God he should taste death for every man. Taste death. Do you realize that
all the sufferings and troubles and miseries, all the tears,
the pain and death of our existence can be traced to one Event. Sin. The sin of our father Adam,
all of our misery and suffering are traced to that one point. Sin. Satan is the father of sin. He is the creator of it, if we
can say that. He is the one who is the liar
and the father of it. Yet we know this, Satan represented
no one. When he sinned, he sinned alone.
He sinned in himself. He could sin for no one else.
He was not a representative. But Adam was. Adam, a federal head of all mankind. And when Adam sinned, God cursed
everything for his sake. Everything began to be cursed.
And Genesis 317, he said to Adam, because thou has hearkened to
the voice of thy wife and has eaten of the tree that I commanded
you not to eat of it. Listen to the result. Cursed. Here's the sentence. Cursed is
every. Cursed is the ground for thy
sake. In sorrow thou shall eat it all the days of thy life.
Thorns also and thistles shall bring forth. To thee. And thou shalt eat the herb of
the field in the sweat of thy face. And so it has been since
then. Man has lived in sorrow and suffered. Man has endured all kinds of
hardships just to make it through this life. And that most of our
lives say, man, if I could just make it through this. And then
we get there and we say, well, man, if I can just make it through
the other. That's all it is, making it from one trouble to
the next, one difficulty to the next, one sorrow to the next. And he said, thou shalt eat thy
bread with the sweat of your face till you return to the ground. For out of it thou wast taken,
dust thou art. You know what you are? Dust. That's it. Thus thou art,
and to thus thou shalt return. So God drove out man and set
a flaming sword to keep the way to the tree of life. It was because
of sin we suffer such seasons of sorrow. Adam was cursed. The
justice of God fell on him swiftly. In the day thou eatest thereof,
thou shalt surely die. And he did. Spiritually he died. And the result of this is he
lost all understanding of how to please God. He lost all ability
to please God. So that he would not come to
God for mercy. He would not come to God. He would not seek Him for a remedy
to his sorrow, to his guilt. The first thing he felt was guilt.
He knew he was naked. He felt guilt. And the first
thing he did is not run to God for mercy, but ran from God and
sought to cover it. It's what man does all the time. He would rather hide than to come to God. He would
rather sow himself fig leaves to cover his nakedness rather
than seek God for a covering. And this death, this curse, this
sorrow, this suffering, because of sin, This sinful nature that
Adam had is then passed to every one of us and the result of this
life is suffering. I don't know, maybe you've been,
maybe you've escaped this. Maybe all you are so blessed
that you just walk on clouds. That you don't even stub your
toe. That's not mine. I know it's
not yours. Why? Because sin was passed. Wherefore is by one man sin entered
in the world and death by sin. So death passed upon all men. For. You want to know why? For all have sin. See where it traces? All of your
suffering traces back to sin. Sin. And behold the madness of
men. to run to the very thing that
causes them sorrow. Isn't this madness? Sin is the reason for our suffering
and yet we embrace it as though it is pleasure. And all it yields
is death and pain. That's it. Momentary glimpses
of pleasure yet eternal destruction and death. You see how madly men cling to
their sin that causes them suffering. God made the things of this world
for man. I mean, think of the fruit of
the vine. The fruit of the vine, wine was intended for the joy
of man and yet men use it for their own pleasure and they
abuse it as they do all things. Food, I like food. I love good
food. Food is good, it's pleasurable. And yet we, men, use it and become
gluttonous, drunkards. Sexual pleasure is given to man
within the confines of marriage and yet they abuse it. They abuse
it, they run after their own lust, defying God and His purpose
for it. Why? Because men set these things
above God. They become their God. It becomes slaves to them. You
know, a man could be a slave to anything, can't he? Work.
It works good. Is there anything wrong with
good work? No. But I'll tell you what, man by nature usually
sets that above God, above family, above anything. You said it could
be anything, could be alcohol, could be drugs, could be food,
could be anything. This is our nature and what does
it do? Those things that were made to be for our good are what? Sorrow! They lead to suffering
and pain. We cause our suffering yet we
run to them, we bow to them, we're enslaved to them. Ephesians
chapter 2 and verse 1 says, Paul tells us, And you hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. Wherein in time past you
walked according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. You who believe, you understand
everything I've just said because that's your experience. You have
been quickened by the spirit to see these things in yourself.
You know the root cause of your sorrow is sin. You know that. You walked in time past in these
same things. And so we're not boasting in
anything in ourselves. There's no boasting here. We
don't try to shift blame and look down upon these wicked children.
Why? Because we walked in that way. Among whom we also had our conversation
in time past, in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature haters of God. That's what it means, children
of wrath. It doesn't mean that they were under the wrath of
God. It means that they were wrathful against God. They were
haters of God, even as others. That's what we were by nature. This is our experience. You who
believe, you know this. Has not sin laid waste the dreams
of man? Has it not produced thorns and
thistles and sweat and sorrow, pain too heavy to bear? That's my experience. That's the experience of my sin.
Suffering. Sin is the cause of my suffering.
Either my sin or the sins of those around me. The sin of Adam
has brought a curse to everything that we touch. But I like these
two words, but God. Without those two words there
would be no hope. Without those two words, but God who is rich
in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us. Listen,
even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ, by grace you are saved. Here are the sweetest words I
can know but God. Had it not been for these words
there would be no salvation, no remedy for this sorrow, no
remedy for this suffering, no remedy for our pain, No joy for
griefs. Unless God had interceded, had
God not acted in grace, had Christ not condescended to become a
man and represent us, we could not have ever come to God. We
never would have known true peace. When Adam first received the
commandment, all he had was a promise of death, a curse. But when God
came down, what was his message then to Adam? After he had suffered,
after he had fallen, his message was a message of mercy. The seed of the woman shall crush
the head of the serpent. God then began to preach Christ. Suffering had already entered
into the world. Grief and death and pain entered into the world.
It was here. And it was here to stay. But
God had a remedy. But God came to man with a remedy. Here is the remedy. The seed
of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent. That's a
promise of victory, isn't it? A promise over sin. But how should
that sin be put away? How should sorrow and death be
put away? Here it is. He shall bruise his
heel. That was the message. The suffering
of the Son of God. The suffering of the Son of God.
By the suffering of Christ, God purposed to show His grace to
every one of His elect. Therefore, look at verse 17 of
your text now. Seeing that the suffering of
the Savior is the center of the gospel. Suffering has entered
the world, sin has come in. The only remedy God gives is
a suffering Savior. Therefore, in all things. It behooved Christ to be made
like in the nature of His brethren. Now the word behooved, I want
you to understand this, it means to owe. To be under a debt. To be obligated to pay a debt. Now then read it. In all things,
Christ was obligated to pay a debt to be made like His brethren. Sin truly is a debt. It is a
debt to the justice of God. And so great is our sin debt. So fallen is our nature. that our debt could never in
any measure, in any sense, be paid by us. So unrighteous are we that when
we attempt to do that which is righteous, we only add to the
debt. Isn't this amazing? Men are crazy.
Men are foolish in this. They run and do so many religious
things, supposing that is paying the debt. Supposing they are
paying on their debt, doing all of these wonderful things, and
yet they do not understand they are only adding to their debt. Now, this is a real person said
this. Don't make this up. She's watching her mother. Her
mother's she brought her into her house and her mother's a
little hard headed. Her mother's a little obstinate.
Really, I know that the daughter is the one that's for the problem,
but she believed she said she said that she said, I know that
I'm going to have more crowns in my jewels in my crown because
I've taken care of my mother. You scoff at that, but they really
mean that. They really believe that what
they do and what they suffer in this life contributes to paying
their debt. They prize their work so much
that they believe God owes them a crown or a jewel for their
suffering. They don't realize that sin is
mixed with all their goodness. All our righteousnesses are as
menstrual cloths. In Luke chapter 7 and verse 40,
you remember the Lord's talking to that man Simon, he gets in
that house, sees that woman of ill repute come in and weeping
at his feet and pouring ointment on his feet and wiping it with
her hair. And Simon is scoffing at this woman. If he knows what
kind of woman this is, he wouldn't let her touch him. And he told
that parable, he said, if man, certain man had two creditors,
one owed 500, I would put in our dollars, 500 million dollars,
possible. Another man owed 50 dollars. Neither one of them had anything
to pay. And the creditor, frankly, freely
forgave them both. He said, which of them do you
suppose would love the creditor more? Well, he said, I'm sure
the one that gave $500 million debt. He said, you've judged
right. They that are forgiven much loveth
much. He is forgiven little, loveth little. But the point
is forgiveness. I know this, if we owed a monetary
debt, God could do it without sacrifice. We don't owe a monetary
debt. Our debt is criminal. Our debt is treason against God. And God could not just frankly
forgive us without a satisfactory payment. God declares that to
Moses. He says, I am merciful and gracious and will by no means clear the
guilty. In order to satisfy the debt,
someone has to suffer. The law must be satisfied and
blood is the cost. Behold God in the Trinity of
His persons, and by His own sovereign will, for His own glory, we know
the Father hath chosen a race that He would forgive. He has
chosen a people He would pardon. And in that covenant, I want
you to understand that Jesus Christ agreed. Jesus Christ put
His name to the covenant so as to be the surety of all these
criminals. The surety. He obligated himself. We use the word when. When this
covenant, this covenant's an eternal covenant. I can't wrap
my mind around it, so I have to say when. When he agreed,
it behooved him then. It was obligation to him that
he be made like unto his brethren. To be made man so that he might
suffer the justice of God and taste death for every man. Now what the scripture says,
look at the text again. Wherefore in all things it was
obligated, he was obligated to be made like unto his brethren
that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things
pertaining to God. To make reconciliation. What is that but what he said
before in verse 9? That he should for the suffering
of death crown with glory and honor that by his grace he should
taste death. You know what that word taste
means? It means to experience it. He was obligated to experience
death. I saw these strawberries. I don't know, they're genetically
altered. I can just tell you. They're huge strawberries. Sam's
went and got them. They're just massive. You bite
into them and they were just juicy and just had to get paper
towels under me because it was just so good. And I could bring
those out there and I could show them to you. I can tell you all
about it, but you're not going to know anything about it until
you do what? You taste it for yourself. Taste it for yourself,
then you say, I see what you mean. I understand. Same thing about something that
tastes awful. You ever heard somebody say that? Man, this
tastes awful. Try it. And like fools, we go, OK, we
try it. By his own love and will, Jesus
Christ, from before the foundation of the world, obligated himself
to taste To experience death. To taste the fruit of our sin. To drink dry the dregs of our unrighteousness. the bitter herbs of death of
our sin. But in order for Him to do that,
He had to be made a man. He had to be made one of us so
that He might fulfill this scripture. God hath laid on Him the iniquity
of us all. God made Christ. hath made Christ
the righteous man to bear the guilt of our sin, the shame of
our sin, and the just reward of our sin. What was the just
reward of our sin? The suffering of death. That
is a just reward for sin. He tasted it. You know, I've explained that
scripture to you before. He shall drink of the brook in
the way. And you remember that brook was a brook, Ketra, the
one that David had crossed after he was exiled into his suffering. That brook, Ketron, was not a
trickling crystal clear brook, it was the drainage ditch from
all of the dung and the entrails and the blood of the sacrifices
flowed into this ditch they call Ketron. He shall drink of the
brook in the way. This man Christ Jesus took the
cup filled with the bitter stench of our sin and suffered untold
agony. I say it's untold because I can't
fathom the wrath of God, can you? I cannot understand fully
the wrath of God. I cannot taste the wrath of God
because of this. He tasted it for me. I will never taste the wrath
of God. I will never taste that kind
of death. We will experience death of this body. But we will never experience
what He did. The suffering of death to make
an offering for sin. Is there any greater suffering
than Christ? I thought of this this morning,
Lamentations chapter 1. He said, Is it nothing to you,
you that pass by? As you pass by the cross this
morning, is it nothing to you? Behold and see, if there be any
sorrow like unto my sorrow which is done unto me, wherewith the
Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. Is there
anyone who has suffered as Christ. I like that hymn, Behold the
man upon the cross, my sins upon his shoulders. Ashamed, I hear my mocking voice
among the scoffers. It was my sin that nailed him
there. Until it was accomplished his
dying breath brought me life I Know that it is finished Jesus was obligated By his own
grace to bear our sins in his own body on the tree To taste
death for his church his brethren his children that God has given
him Therefore Christ was surely the suffering Savior. The second thing I want you to
know about this suffering Savior is it was sufficient. His suffering
was sufficient. Christ became a man, it behooved
Him, He was obligated to do it by His own grace and mercy to
become a substitute for the elect for this purpose. that he might
be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to
God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. He became a man to be a high
priest, to be a mediator. Someone to stand between me and
God. Someone to offer an acceptable
sacrifice so that God should be pleased. You remember in the
law, when they went up to the mountain, they said, Moses, you
go on up and you get what God wants us to do and we'll do it.
Let's go on. We'll do it. Whatever it is.
And when God came down, you remember their response. Oh, no. No, no. If we go up, we'll die. You go up for us. We need someone
to go up for us. And Moses was that man at that
time. What a picture of Christ. The
high priest, the mediator, the only mediator between God and
man, the man, Christ Jesus. Stop to consider, do you need
mercy? This debt that I'm speaking of,
do you feel a debt to God? Well, Jesus Christ came to be
a mediator to pay that debt. I often ask sinners, why will
you die? Why will you die? Why will you not believe on the
Son of God and live? Why can you not see how perfect
His offering was? All who believe on Christ alone,
His mercy is sufficient. We know this to save any sinner. Any sinner. We know that the blood of Christ
has more value to pay the debt for the greatest of sinners.
Therefore, we compel men, come to God by Him and find mercy
and He will freely forgive your sins. Believer in Christ, let
us rejoice in our suffering Savior because we know this, He has
reconciled us to God. I'm reconciled to God. You understand? There's nothing between me and
God. There's no enmity. There's no
enmity. Why? Because my suffering Savior
has reconciled us to God. As our high priest, He has reconciled
us to God. And where do we find this high
priest? We that have come to Him, we find Him merciful. and faithful. Merciful and faithful. Do you realize that his debt
was twice the amount you owed? Isaiah chapter 40, God commands
us to speak comfortably to you. Speak comfortably to Jerusalem.
Won't you cry to her and tell her this, war's over. War's over. The warfare is accomplished. Her iniquity is pardoned, and
here's the reason, for she hath received of the Lord's hand double
for all her sins. You owe five hundred million,
he paid a billion, double for all her sins. Consider the success of your
high priest. that God was so pleased with
his one offering that he raised him from the dead, proving there
was no more sin to be paid. No more debt ascended to the
throne of God, crowned with glory and honor. And God has said Jesus
Christ over all his creation. There is a man in heaven who
rules all things after the counsel of his own will in order to save
his people. God set Christ over everything. For any man to deny this merciful
and faithful high priest is simply to spit in the face of the Son
of God. You deny Him, you are doing nothing but shaking your
fist in the face of God, saying, I will not have that man to rule
over me. That's all you're doing. When
you say, I will not believe, all you are doing is saying, I will
not have Christ rule over me. Too bad. He's already ruling,
not asking your permission. We don't have to vote on this. He's already king. In Hebrews 10, he said, if those
angels delivered the law and men were killed by not obeying
the law, he says, how much sore punishment, suppose ye, shall
be thought worthy, who hath trodden under the foot of the Son of
God, and hath counted his blood of the covenant wherewith he
was sanctified as an unholy thing. You know what that word unholy
means? Insufficient. You know what religion tells
us about the Christ, their Christ? His offering is insufficient.
That's what they believe about the offering of Christ. Christ's
offering was good. It was really good. but it's
just missing something. You know what you said? You said
His offering was unholy and you have trodden underfoot the Son
of God. That's what you've done. Those who try to add their works
to His sufficient work, their religious deeds, their religious
ceremonies, their free will, is to make Christ's offering
insufficient without your help. You count it an unholy thing. Remember the sons of Korah, how
they defied Moses? They said, Moses, you take too
much on yourself. We're just as good as you are.
Know what people say about you? You Christians, I'm just as good
as you are. Look at my religious deeds, I'm
even better than you are. And I'll tell you what, Korah
and his family, they were sincere about this too. They sincerely
thought that they were doing the business of God. They sincerely believed they
were right. Right up until the moment the
earth opened up and swallowed them up. I bet they were surprised that
the earth opened up on them. Even so, those that will not
submit to the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ, through
His faithfulness to suffer, His accomplished redemption, they
too will be surprised. Remember when the Lord said He
divides His sheep from the goats? And He says to those goats on
His left hand, Depart from Me, you that work iniquity, I never
knew you. You know what they said, Lord, what do you mean?
Look at all these good things we did for you. They're surprised. Therefore, behold, he who is
obligated himself to be made flesh and suffer at the tasting
of death. I want you to understand that
his offering as high priest was perfectly accepted of God and
needs nothing from man. He is a merciful and faithful,
what? High priest. High priest. In what? Things pertaining to
God. I want you to see this. Because
he was the suffering Savior, because he was the sufficient
Savior, I want you to know he's also the succoring Savior. Look
at verse 18. For in that he himself hath suffered
being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. We who believe on Christ, the
suffering sufficient Savior, also by grace know that he is
a kind and faithful high priest. Now high priests, I want you
to understand they were taken from among men for this purpose
that they might be patient and compassionate to those they represented. Yet a man who was a high priest,
he understood something about what it is to be a man. He himself
was a man. You read that in Hebrews 5 and
we'll get to the high priesthood later. And so then believer in Christ,
is there any grief we bear that Christ himself hath not borne? Is there any pain do you suppose
that you have suffered greater than the son of God? No, because his sufferings were
so much greater, he can surely have compassion on our lighter
afflictions. On our lighter afflictions. Our Lord himself has suffered
being tempted, and this is not tempted to sin, he felt no sin,
He was never attracted to sin like we are. That's not what
it means. The word means to scrutinize. In that He Himself suffered being
scrutinized, tested, and proven to be true. When Satan had tempted
Him, remember He was out there in the wilderness surviving as
no human possibly could. No food. Starving can you imagine 40 days
starving? Yourself I can't go two days
And I feel like I'm in misery There was no misery like is Perpetually starving to death
and here comes Satan if I'll be the son of God Make this stone
into bread most surely he could have He could have satisfied
His hunger simply by a command. He was tempted to the desire
of His flesh to eat. He was tested to prove His deity. If thou be the Son of God, cast
thyself off. For the scripture says, you know,
His angels shall bear Him up lest He dash His foot against
the stone. He was tempted to show everybody. He was tempted by Satan to set
his love for his people above the justice of God. Bow down
to me and I'll give you all these. You love them so much? Well just
bow down here and you don't have to suffer. I'll give them to
you. They weren't his. And our Lord Jesus Christ in
every instance trusted God. Believed God, waited on God in
everything. What did this prove? It proved
he had no sin. It proved he had no sin. The
prince of this world had found nothing in me. The Savior was
tested and tried so that He would prove He was God manifest in
the flesh. He was tried upon Calvary's tree
and yet found faithful to offer Himself to God. Even so will
He succor those who are tempted. Tested. Tried. You know what
the word succor means? It means to relieve. It means to help. Our Lord Jesus Christ by this
testifies that being a merciful and faithful high priest, he
not only pardons our sins. But when our faith is tried.
He is the one that helps. Trial of your faith is necessary. It's necessary. It is necessary
we suffer. If it were not necessary, you
would not suffer. You suffer because it is necessary
in order to try your faith, to test your faith, to prove your
faith. Well, who are you proving it
to? You're not proving it to God. He gave it. And if you still
have it, He's the one that's keeping it. It's not to God these
trials are for. It's for you. How often have we doubted we
had faith at all? Tis the point I long to know.
Oft it causes anxious thought. Do I love the Lord or no? Am
I his or am I not? If I am, why am I thus? Why this
dull and lifeless frame? Could they hardly be worse who
never knew his name? I need to know. And the way we learn this is
through the trial of our faith. Peter says it's much more precious
than gold. Though it be tried with great
suffering. He tries us so that we may grow that our hope may be refreshed,
that our salvation that is accomplished is soon ready to be revealed. How does he help us? In every
way you need. My God shall supply all your
needs. What do you have? You have exactly
what you need. You don't have what you want.
You have what you need. Why? Because he is the healthy,
see? Didn't he say this to you? I'm
a very present help in trouble. Is he? Has he not helped you? Let me ask you simply this. Do
you still believe You do because he helped you. I tell you, every time I see
my suffering, sufficient Savior, I am relieved. I am relieved
to know that all my sins are gone. My high priest was faithful
and he's merciful. I pray God will help this, help
you, by looking to him. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer. Our Father, thank you for this
merciful, gracious, faithful high priest, our savior. I'm
so thankful that he has obligated himself to take our debt and
pay it. I'm so thankful by the suffering
of death he has tasted death for us and that by his death
he has reconciled us to thee from all our sins. I thank you
that his grace and his offering was so sufficient, Father, that
you and by your justice, your law is forever satisfied on our
behalf. And I'm so thankful he is a helping
Savior, keeps us, sustains us in every trial. Please do so
and continue to do so, we beg you in Jesus' name.